Ten years after it was first broadcast, In Deep is out on DVD. I really should have mixed feelings about this. The first series was all over the place. As I explain below, the pilot episode which had got the show commissioned - Darkness on the Edge of Tow which was quite Wire-like in its exploration of the drug economy - was arbitrarily scrapped a few months before production, leaving an impossibly disturbing hard core ep about child abuse in the opening slot. 

Manic scramble then ensues to come up with new opening episode within the tight framework, budget and commissioning system... Blue on Blue then ends up being my least favourite episode.

But after that, despite at every point being in danger of being booted from the show, I really began to enjoy it. The two hour framework, though dauntingly long, gave me a chance to have a major thriller story accompanied by a major domestic story, which made it all worthwhile: thriller plus character realism. 

This was unified by the role of the mandatory police psychologist both undercover officers had to see. I found this fact in US research on undercover work and thought it a great way of joining deep character issues to the main plot. I'd heard about the Sopranos, and the role of the psychiatrist in the narrative, but hadn't seen any episodes when In Deep was first devised in 1999.